Talkin' 'Bout My Girl
W.C. - 6.3 k
Warnings: throwing up ig?
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Lucy’s calling, answer me, Lucy’s answer me.
Your phone blasts the annoying ringtone Lucy had created the latest time you’d met her, she’d insisted on having a unique one so that you’d answer all her calls. Spoiler alert: you didn’t answer all her calls.
Groaning loudly as your sleep is interrupted by the older woman calling you, she obviously didn’t think about the fact that you were in a totally different time zone and therefore calling you at 7 in the morning wasn’t a good idea.
“Fucking hell Luce, why’re you calling me at 7 in the fucking morning?” You can hear the way she laughs at your grumpy tone and how she sucks in a breath after a second or two. Well at least one of you was enjoying yourselves.
“Ou, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, did the grumpy wittle baby not get her 8 hours of sleep tonight?” She teases through the phone, the rustling of your sheets as you sit up echoing through the room that’s practically empty, like a hollowed out coconut.
“Actually, since you woke me up at 7, I did in fact barely even get 4 hours since Em dragged me away to a party in Connecticut, got wasted and then made me drive us both home.” This just makes the older woman laugh even more. For some reason, you thought that she’d be a bit more responsible and tell you off for going to a party, but she didn’t.
“Well that’s good then, Em is finally making you go through college the correct way, by going to parties.” You groan loudly as you stretch out the tightness in your limbs, the headache that appears soon goes away just as quickly. The floor is cold beneath your feet as you stand up from the bed, dragging your hand over your face before slapping yourself a few times to really wake up.
“Yeah, the proper college experience or something like that.” Lucy hums at your statement, her usually thoughtless brain quickly reforming to its usual state.
“Mhm, well I’ll call tonight then, don’t sleep too late.” You say goodbye to the defender quickly before she hangs up the phone, venturing into the kitchen to pull open the door of the fridge, substituting a warm cup of bitter coffee for an energy drink.
“You’re going to be my best friend the coming four years, aren't you?” You look at the ice cold can in your hand as you speak, smiling sarcastically as you pop the tab open and take a swig, the weird aftertaste of pure caffeine leaving a streak down your tongue.
“Fucking hell, why do I not have anything at home?” As you look into the empty pantry, you suddenly understand why you should’ve taken Em’s advice earlier in the week, ‘fill your kitchen up like you have a whole family to feed’. Apparently a whole family equaled a drunk Em.
Peeking into the living room, you immediately see Em fast asleep on the couch, half her body hanging off the small piece of furniture like she was some drunk dad in a movie. Her mouth is wide open and the snores escaping from between her lips are just brutal.
Her party clothes from the night before are still donning her body, the dress barely staying intact after a night of tossing and turning to find a comfortable fit on the uncomfortable couch. But at least she’s not throwing up in the bathroom, so that's a plus.
You sigh, the quiet patting of your bare feet hitting the floor reaching your ears, fingers wrapping around the discarded blanket laying on the floor beside her on the floor and pulling it up to cover her body. She shifts underneath it, mumbling incoherently at you.
“Thanks mom.” You giggle at her sleepy presumption and she grumbles before turning her back to you like a moody teenager.
“Not your mum Em, but no problem anyway.” Walking back to the kitchen, you quickly find your phone before going to look for your wallet in your room, the sleek black leather laying on the floor beneath your mattress.
“Okay, just got to swing by the kitchen again then I’m off.” You mumble to yourself, patting your sleep shorts to see that you had everything you needed with you. The old Arsenal shorts from your time in the academy and the brief time you’d spent in the first team were the first things you’d packed for your move to America.
The comfort of home you supposed.
The simple t-shirt you had on was a Harvard one you’d gotten practically the first day on campus, the small ‘sports’ being printed just beneath the massive lettering of Harvard across your chest. It’s still warm enough outside to not need a jacket, you think to yourself, the sun shining brightly in the sky.
Picking up your can when you pass by the kitchen, you quickly make your way towards the door, finding the keys to your car hanging on the small hook meant for jackets. The metal ring you put them on clinks as you pull your keys off the hook, pulling your shoes over your bare feet before you turn the lock with a satisfying click, unlocking the door before disappearing out of it. Your key turns in the lock as you close the door, effectively securing Em inside the apartment.
The nice old lady living in the flat beside your own walks out of her door at the same time you do yours, her kind smile immediately filling you with a comforting warmth, her grandmotherly energy enveloping you fully, almost transforming you back into that little kid who would sit and wait for your gran to read a bedtime story.
“Hello dear, what are you doing up so early?” Her southern accent makes her words almost unintelligible, but you understand them either way, nothing was worse than drunk Em trying to speak. The large Newfoundland dog wagging his tail beside her yaps excitedly as he notices you, his entire body wiggling.
“Oh I’m off to the bakery to get some pastries, Em got really drunk at a party yesterday and I don’t have anything for breakfast, so bread and pastries it is.” She looks amusedly at you, despite only having been neighbours for about two or so weeks, it was like the older woman had seen both you and Em grow up the entirety of your lives.
“Yeah that does sound like Em, don’it.” You laugh along with her, walking closer to pet Bubba who jumped at you as soon as you were close enough for him. “Bubba, no, you know we don’t jump on people.”
Laughing at the gentle giant, your hands soon tangle in his soft fur, giving him a bunch of kisses.
“Oh Mrs. Peters, you know it’s his fault that he gets so excited, he’s just a little baby.” She rolls her eyes fondly at you and her dog, a simple tug of his leash making the fluffy dog go back to his owner. Moving towards the stairs you quickly turn back to ask her;
“Mrs. Peters, do you want anything from the bakery?” She smiles but shakes her head, signaling that she doesn't want anything, before she enters the elevator and disappears from your line of sight.
You hum the tune to the song playing in your headphones as you walk down the stairs quickly, arms nearly tied to your body as you make your way down to the bottom floor of the building. The last step is one you jump over, walking over to the door that opens almost automatically and exiting the building completely.
The rays of the brightly shining sun hit your face as soon as you step out into the warm weather, Frank Ocean’s soft voice floating through your headphones as you walk, the wind blowing onto your exposed arms.
It wasn’t often that people would just walk through the neighbourhood just to appreciate the scenery, to appreciate the nature and the small things that often seemed unimportant when living in such a fast tracked life as you did.
But you couldn’t just ignore the beauty in the simple things, the beauty in the small flowers growing along the road, the beauty in the gravel crunching under your feet as you walked, the warmth of the sun against your skin and the cooling effect of the wind.
It was all so beautiful, the calm and simple beauty.
You could find beauty in everything you saw, if you knew where to look for it, the soft smile on the mother’s face as she watched her toddler climb on the structure, the bird chirping as you pass it by, the old man sitting on a park bench.
The world wasn’t as bad as people thought it was, they just hadn’t looked at it the right way.
The chime of the bell hanging above the door takes you back to only hours before, when you’d been at the diner with the divine girl, Nika. God, she was the embodiment of beauty, Aphrodite reborn as a human.
The local bakery is well known among students, professors and newcomers alike, everyone knows about the bakery with the best pastries in the whole of Boston. Knowing that, it’s not even close to surprising when the line to the register reaches across the room, looking up at the menu of sorts to see what you want to pass the time.
There’s music flowing out the speakers, covering the low sound of people speaking to each other with its instrumental cling. You didn’t mind it though, it made everything just feel more real in a sense, there was no telling why, you don’t even get a chance at trying to figure it out as your phone starts ringing again, though this time it wasn’t Lucy’s voice ringing out, instead it was the infamous song of Arsenal, The Angel aka North London forever.
“Lee, to what do I owe the pleasure of a call? Did Spurs win?” You were both Arsenal through and through, but you always liked to tease her about her being a Spurs fan, the arch rivals of Arsenal being one of the things the older woman hated the most.
“Thank god, they didn’t win. No, I’m just calling to check up on you, ask how you’re settling in and all that.” She tries to be nonchalant in her tone, but having known the blonde for as long as you had, you knew that there was something more to it. Thankfully, the line’s length has barely changed since the second you walked in, so there’s plenty of time to figure out what she’s playing at.
“Leah, what do you really want? I know you as well as you know yourself.” When you hear her sigh you pump your fist in the air triumphantly, getting more than a few judgy looks and glances from the people around you.
“Well, Jordy and I are having a bit of an argument right, and as our unofficial kid we need you to settle this.” You nod before you realize that she can’t see you, quickly replying verbally.
“What’s the arguing about?” She almost cuts you off with the speed at which she responds at, the smallest giggle to her tone giving you the impression that the matter at hand wasn’t as serious as she’d first made it out to be.
“Who do you think Blu loves the most?” Giving it a second before you answer to give the illusion that you actually thought about it, you can almost imagine the smile on her face, thinking that you’re going to back her.
“Neither of you, Blu loves me the most.” Leah lets out an offended gasp at your statement, and you can hear Jordan’s laugh in the back for a second before a playful slap can be heard. On your side of the line, only a giggle can be heard with the simple murmuring of day to day life in the background.
“That’s only because you give him so many treats.” The blonde groans at you, but you just smile smugly in return, not that she could see.
“It sucks to suck doesn’t it, Lee.” The line of people in front of you gets smaller and smaller with every passing minute as people order, with there only being around five or so people in front of you now.
“Well I wouldn’t know much about sucking, right Jord?” When you finally catch on to what she’s insinuating, you gag, not even caring that there are tens of people around you who can hear.
“Ew, I don’t need to know about what you two get up to in your spare time.” The sentence is whispered, not wanting to embarrass yourself even more than you already had. “Listen, I’ve got to go, I’m about to order some pastries for me and Em so I’ll call you back later.”
By now you’re nearly at the front of the line, about to get what you came for. But they didn’t seem to want to end the call, nor the teasing they were putting you through.
“Ooh, does your girlfriend want a sweet breakfast?” If the two could see you they’d guaranteed to be laughing their heads off, the look of pure disgust on your face simply hilarious.
“Em’s not my girlfriend, even the thought of that is just like ew.” You shudder when you think about it, the girl had quickly become one of your closest friends and to even entertain the idea of being with her romantically was just gross.
“So you’re just buying her breakfast platonically?” Rolling your eyes at the conversation, you quickly plaster a smile on your face as you reach the counter.
“Hi, I’d like four croissants and a caramel coffee.” The cashier’s name tag reads ‘Amelie’, the girl looking at you confused as if she doesn’t understand what you’re saying. The women on the other side of the phone snicker and if you weren’t raised the way you were, you would’ve hung up by now.
“A caramel coffee? You mean a caramel macchiato?” She questions dryly, like she really doesn’t enjoy her work.
“Yeah let’s go with that.” You pull out your wallet from your pocket, fishing the card out whilst trying your very hardest to not drop the phone sitting in the space between your head and your shoulder.
“That’ll be 14 dollars.” Blipping your card against the side of the maschine, the transaction goes through without a problem thankfully. You smile at the girl again as she tells you that your order will be ready soon, and as you walk over to sit down at a table you can hear the kissy noises they’re making.
“Did you two just collectively decide not to hear me say ‘me and Em’, the idiot got wasted last night and I don’t have anything at home, courtesy of that drunk idiot. So me being the great friend that I am, decided that it was better to get breakfast than having to deal with a hangry and hungover Em.” You can hear the way they let out sounds of realization, understanding what you mean.
“Hey, why didn’t you bring us treats when we were hungover?” Leah asks, apparently offended that you hadn’t done this for them.
“Well, you two never took me out to parties so I never knew when you were hungover.” Despite them not being able to see it, you shrug absentmindedly, it wasn’t your fault that you didn’t get to go with them.
“Fair enough.”
“Listen, I’ll call you back later, I’ve got to carry everything home and I only have two hands, so.” The two say goodbye before hanging up, and you slip your phone back into your pocket as you walk up to the counter, taking the paper bag with you as you walk out into the warm weather again.
The walk back home is just as peaceful as the walk to the bakery, maybe the usual Boston had decided to take a break for just a day. Well whatever it was, you were thankful for it, your sleep deprived mind couldn’t handle much more than it already had.
When the lock clicks and you open the door, you’re met with the sound of groaning coming from the kitchen. Taking off your shoes at the entrance, you hang your keys back on the designated hook before you move towards the kitchen.
Peeking around the corner and into the kitchen, you quickly find the source of the noise. Because Em was standing in the middle of the room, banging her head against the counter clearly in quite a bit of pain.
Why she was hitting her head against the counter then, you didn’t know, it’s completely irrational. But if that’s what she wanted to do then you’d let her, it wasn’t really any of your business.
“Em? What are you doing?” She looks up at you when she hears your voice, her gaze murderous, her hands in her hair, massaging her head like it was the last thing she’d ever do.
“Oh, grumpy you’re finally home, where have you been and why did you let me drink so much last night?” She groans out from between clenched teeth, your laugh filling the room pitifully within seconds at her words. It is funny after all, it was Em herself who insisted on drinking last night and her suffering the consequences of her actions was hilarious.
“I was out being an amazing friend and getting us both some breakfast.” You place the bag on top of the counter, almost right in front of Em’s face, but when she makes the motion of grabbing the bag and consuming the contents, you snatch it from the counter.
The older girl whines at your actions, her head coming down against the marble countertops again, the repetitive thumping annoying you more than you’d like to admit.
“Listen, I didn’t spend 14 dollars just for you to throw it back up. Off you go, get ready and for god’s sake please do not throw up in my living room.” Putting your hands on the back of her shoulders, you gently lead her all the way out of the room and into your bathroom, sitting her in front of the toilet before going back to the kitchen. “Oh, I talked to Luce earlier, she wants to thank you for making me ‘experience college the right way’.”
Emma lets out a groan that sounds like a hybrid of a hawk getting piped and the death whistle, was getting praised by THE Lucy Bronze really worth the terrible hangover? Only Em could answer that, and she was currently hanging over the seat of your toilet, puking her guts up.
You can hear Em flushing and then moving to the sink, turning the tap on and taking some into her mouth, swirling the water around. Her bare feet slap disturbingly against the wooden floor as she makes her way towards the kitchen, your back turned towards her as she comes up behind you, her arm slinging around your shoulders.
“Wait, Luce? Luce as in Lucy Bronze? Lucy Bronze, the three time Champions League winner?” You shrug at her, turning back around to face the rest of the kitchen with Em hot on your heels.
“Yeah, I mean knowing her is not impressive.” Em’s wide eyes suggest a different story, her hands coming up to lay on your shoulders as she shakes your body back and forth.
“Wait, you know THE Lucy Bronze?” Taking her hands off your shoulders, you push the coffee cup into her free hand and a croissant into her other one. She nods thankfully before she hops up and sits on the counter, the small bag being placed between your bodies as you sit beside her on the counter.
“Did I forget to tell you that? And also why would she call me if we didn’t know each other?” Your eyebrows knit together, thinking back to all the conversations you and Em had over the past two and a half weeks.
“UH yeah, how do you know the best defender in the world?” The brunette girl slaps your shoulder playfully, studying your side profile out the corner of her eye. You look back at her in the exact same way, a small almost unknown smile on your face.
“Our mums knew each other, I’ve known Lucy since I was in diapers. And besides, I wasn’t the only one out here hiding family.” Raising your eyebrows accusingly, the girl beside you gives you a look of perplexion, not understanding what you mean by the statement.
“What do you mean?” She asks, her feet swinging off the edge, nearly smacking against your cabinet doors every time.
“I mean your scary older brother that you never told me about.” You say matter of factly, pointing at her with a ‘you know who I’m talking about’ look. The ‘ahhh’ sound that escapes her lips when she realizes who you’re talking about sounds out through the kitchen, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
“Oh, Cal? Cal’s not scary, he looks like the rat from flushed away. Oh and that reminds me, you have to come with me to this dinner he invited me to next week. No way I’m third wheeling all night long with him and his latest girlfriend.” The snort you let out is involuntary, the American girl’s description of her brother very vivid, and hopefully correct. It wasn’t like you’d seen her brother ever before, so you didn’t actually know what he looked like.
“Yeah sure I’ll help you feel less single, but no hand holding and no pretending to be together.” You look at her pointedly, making your point totally clear, no fake dating, that never turned out right. Em nods her head as she shrugs, as if to tell you ‘fair enough’.
“No way that I’d go out with you anyways, you’re far too grumpy for my liking. Maybe you can set me up with one of your mates in England.” Her hand covers her mouth so that she doesn’t laugh at your horrified expression, clearly you’re disturbed at the mere thought of Boston Tea Party part two happening if they ever broke up.
“One Boston tea party is enough mate, we don’t need another.” The sip of coffee that Em had just taken covers basically the entirety of your kitchen in a single second, the girl beside you spitting it out in surprise. “Em, come on. I’m not cleaning that up just so you know.”
Jumping down from the counter, you nearly slip on Em’s newly spit out coffee, only escaping the sticky mess by a millimeter. Her laughter clings out through the apartment, and Em makes sure to let you know that she’s sorry by telling you through her bouts of laughter.
“Look under the sink, you’ll find what you need under there.” The sound of the cabinet door opening can be heard from where you’re standing in the middle of the living room, picking up all the various things littered around the space.
“Girl, why do you have everything under here except paper towels?” The brunette calls out for you, and you shake your head in amusement at her, there was no way that Em hadn’t thought about looking in any other cabinet than the one she had her head stuck in at the moment.
“Look in the compartment above, see if you’ll find them there.” You get the confirmation that she’s found it when she lets out a short ‘aha’, you can almost imagine the way her head hits the corner of the sink when she gets up, the loud ‘fuck that hurt’ being very telling.
“You okay?” Looking around the wall in the direction of the kitchen, you see Em sticking her hand out, the thumb sticking up telling you that she was fine.
It didn’t take as long as either of you had thought to clean the kitchen up, only a few minutes and even less to clean the mess in the living room. Soon enough, the television was turned on and the two of you were sitting in silence watching the looney tunes.
“Do you think the duck piped the rabbit or is it the other way ‘round?” Em questions, her tone completely serious, as if she wasn’t asking the craziest question ever.
“Uh I don’t think Bugs Bunny piped Daffy Duck.” Looking at her incredulously, she only responds with a shrug, her theory about the two cartoon animals being shot down almost immediately.
“Well they do have sexual tension that’s for sure.” She states matter of factly, pointing at you like you would agree. Spoiler alert: you didn’t agree at all.
“Mate what goes even on in your head?” You ask her, looking at her as if she belonged in a mental institution. Em scratches her head nonchalantly, stretching out her legs and placing her feet in your lap. “Do you not have anywhere to be?”
“Like where?” She asks, her words coming out mumbled as she’s biting her nails, chewing on the bits before she spits them out. When she looks at you she sees the judgemental look on your face, stopping what she’s doing with no real sense of urgency.
“I don’t know, maybe at home? Do you not have like a hundred plants that need to be watered?” She springs up from the couch, running to the entrance where she puts her shoes on before she shouts out a quick ‘bye’ and runs out the house.
“What is she on?” You laugh through the sentence, the pure hilarity and absurdity of most situations involving your newest best friend making you laugh more often than not.
With Em being in and out of your apartment practically every day, the week leading up to the dinner with her brother and his ‘newest’ girlfriend passes by extremely fast, feeling more like a day than a week.
“Em, what am I supposed to wear? Is it like a fancy restaurant or more chill?” You shout from your room, Em changing into her clothes in the living room. The clothing hangers click against each other as you look through the clothes you’d managed to put up over the past few weeks, many different button ups and a few normal t-shirts.
“You’re asking me this 10 minutes before we go?!” She shouts back, surprised that you’re not already finished dressing yourself and getting ready, seeing as you were the first one out the house normally.
“Yeah, I just realized that I never asked you what to wear.” You shrug to no one in particular, seeing as you were the only one present in your room.
“Didn’t your parents take you to a bunch of dinners with their clients?” Em’s voice carries through the walls, especially with the woman coming closer and closer to your door.
“I’ve been to a fair few, but in my defense I’ve always had stylists helping me so putting together outfits isn’t really one of my strong points.” Pulling out a few items of clothing, you hold them up so that they’re almost exclusively in your line of sight, looking to see if they’d match.
“Fair enough, it’s not too fancy, just wear that linen shirt and some of your fancy pants.” She peeks her head into the room, looking at where you’re standing in your jeans, seemingly debating whether to wear the simple white button down or a Harvard t-shirt.
“Trousers?” You raise your eyebrow cheekily at the brunette, a small teasing smile on your face.
“Yeah yeah, you know what I mean.” Emma rolls her eyes at you whilst you place the two articles of clothing back into your closet, the hangers clicking easily against the pole they’re hooked on.
“I do, I just like to annoy you.” Hearing the door click closed, you pull the linen shirt off its hangar and pull it over your head before you unbutton your jeans and pull the ‘fancy pants’ over your legs. Buttoning up the various buttons on the slacks, you quickly tuck your shirt in before opening the door and tapping Em on her head as you pass her.
“Shut up man.” You look back at Em when you reach the entrance, picking out your fanciest pairs of shoes to show her.
“Those look good?” She studies them for a second or two before nodding diligently, pulling on a pair of relatively fancy shoes too.
“They’re better than your beat up sneakers at least.” She shrugs at your offended look, almost telling you that it’s only fair since they are beat up.
“They still have at least two, three years left in them alright. There’s no need for new ones if they work just fine.” For the second time that day, you take your keys off the hook in the hall, letting Em walk out the open door before you so that you can lock everything up.
“Are we finally taking your car?” She asks, seeing the little metal key on your keychain with hers nowhere in sight. Normally you were insistent on taking hers as your baby was almost priceless, a reminder of home that you’d come to love over the past week, seeing as you’d gotten it shortly after signing your first professional contract.
“Yeah, I need to impress your brother, right?” Smirking cheekily over your shoulder, you see Em smiling widely at you as the lock on the door clicks closed, waiting for you to follow her into the elevator.
“Can I-” She starts off, the cool air in the lift making the hair on your arms raise, the skin becoming all prickly like that of a goose.
“No.” You can see the way Em pouts almost like a petulant child through the mirror, her arms crossed over her chest as she glares at you.
“You don’t even know what I was about to ask you.” Raising a single eyebrow at her, you look down at her through the corner of your eye, like you did more often than you were willing to admit.
“No, but I do know you and that’s enough, no one other than me will ever drive my car.” The late afternoon sun glows bright orange like hot coals as the two of you step out into the humid air, the garage not too far away from the building’s entrance. Picking out the right key, you quickly unlock the door before pulling it up, revealing the gorgeous red ‘67 Mustang that Em always wanted you to drive.
The girl in question wolf whistles when she sees the car, a hand coming up to shelter her eyes from the sun beaming into them, moving towards you with slow steps. Walking into the garage, you motion for the other girl to open the door on the passenger side as you plop down into the driver’s seat.
You don’t have to feel around for very long to find the ignition, as you push the clinking keys in, smiling satisfied as the motor revs up loudly. Applying a small amount of pressure to the gaspedal, it’s not long until you’ve navigated your way out of the garage successfully and pulled onto the main road.
Pulling the seat belt over your body as soon as you’ve made it out to the main road, you waste no time in pulling your sunglasses out of their compartment and putting them over your eyes so as to not get completely blinded by the sun.
“Okay, give me the rundown of your brother, likes and dislikes, hobbies, aspirations, all the basic knowledge apart from him looking like the rat from flushed away.” Tapping your fingers against the steering wheel, you peek down at the phone that’s currently giving you directions for the restaurant, the beautiful nature almost mesmerizing.
“His full name is Callum Adam Whitmore, he’s 23 years old and he plays basketball for UConn. He likes sports, hitting on anything that has a pulse, pretending he knows how to play the guitar and pretentiously explaining movies. He dislikes losing, being told no by our parents and me on a few occasions. Hobbies are partying and gaming, aspires to go to the NBA. That’s all.” Em lists, giving you all the information you need to adequately make the assumption that Callum Adam Whitmore is kind of an arse.
“Well he sounds…nice?” There’s no denying how questionable you sound, clearly not believing the words coming out of your own mouth. Em looks at you over the tops of her own glasses, giving you a skeptical look.
“No he doesn’t, he’s an ass and to use the correct terminology, a fuckboy.” Em pushes her glasses up higher on the bridge of her nose, turning the knobs on the inbuilt stereo for it to start playing music, ‘My Girl’ by The Temptations flowing softly out the speakers.
“Sing with me grumpy! I’ve got so much honey, the bees envy me, I’ve got a sweeter song, than the birds in the trees.” She sings loudly, her hands gesturing for you to join her in singing as you shake your head, a small smile on your face at her antics. “Come on, sing it man! I guess you’d say, what can make me feel this way?”
Finally relenting at the last second possible, you join the older girl in song happily.
“My girl, my girl, my girl, talkin’ ‘bout my girl.” Tapping along to the beat just as the last note of the song rings out, you pull into the parking lot of the restaurant, effectively ending the little karaoke session you were participating in.
“Holy shit man, that went so fast.” Em pats your shoulder as you pull into a parking space at the corner of the big parking lot, taking the keys out of the ignition before you fold your sunglasses and place them back into their compartment.
“Perks of having a really fast car.” Waiting from the brunette to step out of the car, you don’t waste a second in locking up the extremely expensive piece of machinery. You take a second to fix your hair in the rear view mirror, even though you don’t really know why, there wasn’t really anyone in that restaurant to impress now that you knew that Em’s brother was a total ass, but your instinct told you to.
“Can you hurry up?” The girl in question asks from her place in front of the restaurant door and you send her a sarcastic smile in response, half running half walking up to her.
She doesn’t say anything as she pushes the door open, in fact she doesn’t say anything until you two reach the hostess stand where she tells the worker the name of the reservation.
As the worker leads the two of you over to the table there’s a million different thoughts running through your head, why were you nervous? Why did it feel like your stomach was about to explode? Why were there so many tables in the restaurant?
You only really tune back into the real world around you when Em pinches your side, her head turned towards a table with a man sitting alone, presumably her brother. The man stands up and walks around the table to reach your side, bringing your friend into a familial embrace, before he turns to you and sticks his hand out.
There’s no avoiding the sense of deja vu you get from the action, remembering the girl from the party almost a week ago who’d done the exact same thing, but then again it was the most common form of introducing yourself.
“Cal Whitmore.” His voice is on the deeper side, not Darth Vader deep but definitely on the deeper side of the spectrum. His calloused hand grips onto yours in a confident handshake, fingers gripping onto yours harder than needed, which fits the cocky description Em had put forth.
“Y/n Y/l/n.” You smile staley at him, the man moving back to his side of the table as you pull out the chair for the girl beside you, only sitting down when she’s settled.
“So, where’s your darling date Cal?” Em asks her older brother teasingly, looking around the restaurant like she’d appear just out of anywhere.
“Calm yourself Em, she went to wash her hands.” He leans back in his chair cockily, his eyes glued to the backside of one of the waitresses passing by like some horny teenage boy.
“You know what, he does kind of look like the rat from Flushed Away.” You lean in closer to Em as you whisper, studying the man’s face carefully and noticing increasing similarities between the stopmotion rat and the tall man.
“Em, what the fuck, have you been telling people that I look like the rat from Flushed Away again? I don’t look like the fucking rat from Flushed Away, stop telling people that.” He looks at the girl beside you in disappointment, his thin lips turning down quickly. Well that was until a sweet voice cut in, a soft hand with fingers adorned with rings placed on his shoulder, moving down to his chest softly.
“What has she done now?” That accented voice was familiar, and as your eyes trail up from the stranger's hand to her chest and then lastly to her face you soon realize why it was so damn familiar. The careful upwards tug of her lips to the slight curls of her hair and the furrow in her brow, there was no denying that the girl standing before you was someone you recognized.
Fucking hell, you’d just taken your best friend’s brother’s girlfriend out on a date a mere week before meeting him officially. You were officially fucked.
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